“Do you see how big the fort is?” Tristan asks her.
“It’s huge! Definitely bigger than the one I made with you guys earlier this summer,” Jess chuckles.
I push myself up off the floor when we reach the fort’s entrance, and I swipe back my hair, smiling as Jessica’s kind eyes find mine.
“I didn’t know you were coming home.” Why is my voice all high-pitched and shit?
A knowing smirk tilts Jess’s lips.
Shit. She knows.
Jessica shrugs, pushing her pin-straight brown hair behind her shoulder. “It was a last-minute decision. I wanted to come home for the weekend!” She rubs circular motions on Elena’s back since she’s attached like a barnacle to her leg.
Taryn appears out of the fortress behind me with rosy cheeks.
Jess has a shit-eating grin on her face, her green eyes flickering with delight. “I see you two are more acquainted now. Are you finally friends?”
Friends.
The word churns like hot acid in my stomach, like my body is rejecting the notion.
Everything about Taryn thrills me: her sugary citrus scent, the way I can read her emotions effortlessly when I peer into those big brown eyes, holding them captive as she does with mine.
Her tongue.
Her lips.
I’m obsessed with the words that emerge from someone so feisty and kind simultaneously. She is selfless. Despite how hard I tried, she makes my family happy in ways I never could.
Since I first found her, Taryn Meyers has consumed my thoughts. And that vital artery in my chest aches whenever she slips into my mind or I’m near her.
I have her. But not in the way my heart craves her.
FORTY-ONE | TARYN
“You’ve only been in college for a month. How are you seeing someone already?”
Jessica shrugs at Cameron’s interrogation about the guy she’s been seeing, her cheeks turning that shade of pink that reminds me of the pink hollyhocks growing in the garden outside. Her three older brothers examine her like a specimen under a microscope.
I doubt she wanted to tell them, but she couldn’t stop smiling when they asked how her classes were going earlier. They instantly knew something was up, and since then, they haven’t stopped grilling her. She’s probably contemplating why she came home for the weekend.
Her eyes bounce between the boys as we all lounge around the clean living room, which was hell to clean up because now I have a ton of laundry to fold tomorrow. Elena and Tristan are too busy to participate in this conversation. Not that they’d want to. They are more entertained by seeing how long they can hold their Oreos in their milk before half of it sinks to the bottom.
Her eyes clash with mine, and I give her an apologetic smile from my position on the floor as I scratch Rossco’s stomach. “Oh, give her a break.”
“No, I want to know who the guy is,” Brennan snaps, leaning over his knees.
Colten smirks, reaching for the nearly empty pizza box and grabbing a slice. I think it’s like his sixth one. But he said he didn’t have lunch today, so I can’t say I’m surprised.
“You guys brought Taryn home and literally couldn’t keep your dicks—”
“Jessica,” Colten warns.
Jess huffs out a breath, and I laugh, all stares from the boys now directed at me.
“What?” I look between them. “She’s not wrong, and you know it.”
Cameron leans back into the couch cushions and knits his arms, releasing an annoyed sigh. “I still don’t like the idea.”
